Upmarket supermarket chain Waitrose has insisted its burgers are made from 100 per cent beef after pulling lines from its shelves ‘as a precaution’.

Waitrose’s frozen beefburgers are now back on sale in stores having been removed when its producer Dalepak was caught up in the ongoing horse meat scandal.

Dalepak’s accreditation was temporarily suspended after the British Retail Consortium (BRC) found some of the beefburgers it supplied contained horse meat.

The accreditation has now been reinstated after tests carried out by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) found ‘no horse or pork DNA’ in its products.

Waitrose also carried out tests on its products which found its burgers contained only 100 per cent beef.

Explanation: Waitrose managing director Mark Price (Picture: Reuters)

‘Last week the BRC took the decision to temporarily suspend their accreditation of the Dalepak site and as a result, we took the frozen burgers off sale,’ Waitrose managing director Mark Price explained in a letter to customers.

‘The BRC have now reinstated the accreditation and as a result of this, Waitrose frozen burgers are now back on sale.’

He added: ‘The Waitrose technical team have visited Dalepak and after a thorough review, reported that the burgers were produced to our high specification and separately from other companies products.

‘As a further precaution, the ingredients were sent for testing and this showed that our burgers contained only 100 per cent beef.’

Around 10million burgers have been removed from supermarkets as a consequence of horse DNA being found in some products in supermarkets including Tesco, Aldi, Lidl and Iceland.